


desperate times

by medumyce



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Violence, POV First Person, Vampires, can it still be cottagecore if somebody dies, lesbian vampires no less
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:54:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23285080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/medumyce/pseuds/medumyce
Summary: It was Sunday.The cup held the blood of a shepherd whose name I never knew.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3





	desperate times

It was Sunday. 

The cup held the blood of a shepherd whose name I never knew. I couldn’t be turned without a taste of unholy wine, and in our little valley, he was the only one who could be easily taken. I took his confession before she drained him. I made sure he reached Heaven. We considered it the highest reward in return for my transformation. 

She gave me the cup. I could see my own reflection in red. She smiled at me, and I saw her sharp eyeteeth and felt a pang of want. I needed what she had. I wet my mouth with the shepherd’s blood at first, took the cup away and licked my lips. It was like copper. It was still warm.

“Did you... change your mind?” she said.

“No, of course not,” I replied. “We need this.” I tipped back the cup. I emptied it, and some still poured out in thin rivulets down my chin, splattering inkblots that seeped into my chest. “Come on, do it.”

She nodded and leaned forward. Her lips brushed my neck, like they had many times before: I recalled evenings in front of the fire, late afternoons drenched in low, golden sunlight; quiet laughter and soft sighs. I hardly felt the bite.

When she pulled away, she didn’t go far. “I wish it could be different,” she said very quietly, close to my ear. One slender hand was brushing through my hair, starting at my scalp and ending at my waist, only to travel back up again. The ring on her finger was cold as it touched the back of my neck: she was always cold. She kissed away the blood still welling from the bite on my neck. 

“I know. But—we can’t stop, we have to finish it. Then everything will be perfect.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. You’re making it perfect.”

How many people can say that they built their own coffin—dug their own grave? She hadn’t let me do it alone; she’d been next to me as I silently shoved frozen earth from under the now-bare weeping willow. But she was alone when she put me to rest. She kissed me see-you-soon as I laid down among the fresh flowers in my coffin, the blood of a stranger still staining the front of my dress, and then she buried me. 

So my death was quiet. My funeral rites were a mockery of the church, a twisted rendition of the mass to suit our own unholy affair. It was said that my transformation from human to something less was an affront to God. But God, we were reverent, weren’t we? Didn’t she grieve? There would have always been something between us. There would have been cotton, matching bodices ripped from flour sacks, where there should have been bare skin. I was alive; she was not. And since she couldn’t come to me, I met her where she stood.

She waited for me so faithfully, until the valley bloomed with cascades of wildflowers. Under these I woke quietly, and emerged from my crypt.

I remember the way she looked at me when I walked in the door of our cottage and stood under the wreath of gardenias that she had hung there. There was the dining table I carved, there was the quilt she sewed. How terrible it had been for me to leave her alone in this place that was intrinsically ours, but how wonderful things were going to become. Her oildark hair was longer, braided with silk ribbons, a testament to the passage of time. Her cheeks were flushed, and she was so, so beautiful. She ran to me like I was a hand outstretched as she drowned, and when I felt her in my arms again I knew that I was completely done for. I had thought I knew devotion. But now I had died for her—at her hands, no less—and there was a depth to my love that I hadn’t known before. 

I didn’t feel dead; I felt more alive than ever. And to know that it was her who made me that way was exquisite. There was no sadness weighing down my chest anymore, because she had taken it away. I discovered things with her, about her, that made me ache instead with fullness and manic joy.

And I understood her, now that I was like her, and I understood she felt the same way.

**Author's Note:**

> this was based on some texts between my best friend and me. i wrote it in less than an hour and didn't edit or proofread it ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
